KOHAT: Hundreds of workers of the Wapda hydroelectric labour union, Kohat chapter, held a protest demonstration here on Tuesday against delay in filling of vacancies in the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco).

Speaking on the occasion, the union’s office-bearers said 50 per cent of the Pesco’s technical staff was going to retire soon. They feared that delay in filling vacancies would create serious performance issues in the company.

They alleged that the reason behind increasing accidents involving Pesco staffers was appointment of untrained people made on political grounds.

Separately, elders of Sorgul village have demanded immediate replacement of a worn-out electricity line passing through the village as it posed danger to lives of residents.

Former Pakistan Peoples Party nazim Gulzar Khan and social worker Allah Dad said the line was laid for running a tubewell many years ago, but repeated repairs had left it bare.

No Pesco official could be contacted to know about their version on the matter as the company’s offices were closed due to a protest by the staff.

POWER OUTAGES: Unscheduled and prolonged power outages and low voltage have been continuing in Kohat since mid June to the misery of the consumers in the hot and humid weather.

Dr Hashim, a local resident, said the power supply was snapped at 4pm and restored around 9.15pm almost daily. He added Pesco staff also suspended supply routinely from 12pm to 3am. Similarly, he said the consumers also faced outages in between. He said Pesco was not following the loadshedding schedule.

Social worker Shakir Bangash regretted that duration of loadshedding in Shahpur and Jungle Khel had reached to 18 hours. He said people suffered four to five hours long power blackouts. He said people, especially children and elderly, passed sleepless nights.

Mr Bangash said fluctuating voltage was another problem for the residents.

When contacted, Pesco officials said the shutdowns were because strong winds had uprooted some poles supplying electricity to different areas of Kohat division from the Shiekh Muhammadi grid station, Peshawar.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2021